Committed to being "The Best in Flathead"

I am going way back as I write this week’s column, with the passing of Mary Tyler Moore this past week. It took me back to thinking about what was television like back in the seventies, verse today.

“The Mary Tyler Moore Show”, ran for seven years back in the 70’s, and I can remember it like it was just yesterday. We had only one TV, located in a family room that my parents had added on to our home that was about 1200sf, if that. What was unique back then, shows like hers stood out easily because we may have had 2 channels, maybe 3, and that is all anyone I knew really had, compared today, this is like an Ant in the middle of your kitchen table! Even if you only have 3 channels today, with all the other devices out there…our finger tips have ‘armies of ants’ to choose from compared to the seventies.

So I googled shows in the seventies, and a selection of 51 shows came up, of the 51 only 4 I do not remember ever watching. Google the 2010’s, a selection of 51 names come up as well, of these names, I only recognized four! Just crazy, with so many more other channels available, I find myself watching shows like HGTV, Food Network, Hallmark and a few news shows, As well as a few reality shows around making businesses or people better and when home on Friday night, Blue Bloods is a must.

As I further examined the shows listed in the seventies, compared to today, there is definitely a reason why I may not be watching these shows. With names like: Mad Men, Party Down, Cougar Town, Sons of Anarchy…where their TV cover picture to reel me in , is of a very muscular man’s back with a ‘Skull’ embedded in his back. Many of these cover photo shoots are very similar, very sinister and morbid…just the way I want to end my day.

Look back at the TV shows of the seventies, there final picture selected to lure us in to invite them into our homes; where of smiling faces with names like Happy Days, The Love Boat, The Waltons, Fantasy Island, Green Acres, Bewitched with a picture of a pretty woman (another one of my fav’s) and a pretty smile… NICE, warm fuzzy feelings. A much better way to end our days…HAPPY!!!.

Parenting is so much more challenging these days, and I think sometimes today’s generations can just get plain immune to really what all this is, because they have not experienced the “Happy” of the television shows ‘Back in the Day’, and really do not have the selection to choose from.

As video games became the rage, remember you actually, usually, sat in a living room or family room in your home and could select what your children were watching because you bought it at the store for them and ‘the device’ they watched it on was too big to transport in your hand and had to be plugged in. I can honestly say I stayed away from purchasing any of the fighting/killing type videos, and focused mainly on ones more sports orientated, like kicking field goals, making 3 pointers and hole in ones.

One evening, I remember returning home from an early evening dinner and we had left our two boys home, (this was before cell phones, dinner out was maybe a hour at a close restaurant) at the time I am going to guess they were like 12 and 9. As usual we had reviewed all the normal rules expected to be followed while we were gone and what to do if this or this may happen. I have always believed in setting up how to handle things if this or that may come up. As well as expectations of what is expected when out in public places…proper manners.

We walked in the door, the lights are low, and I can hear the boys playing a video game that I was not familiar with, and as I stood there, watching, they were playing a video game where the object of the game was not to keep score of how many baskets you could make, but how many “COPS” you could kill!!! You can only imagine my reaction to this…and their response, “Mom, it is just a game,”, Well not my kinda game, for our family…Hmmmm, do you suppose that this has anything to do with the disrespect for police officers throughout our country, because so many parents have purchased and allowed these games into their homes, just like the parent who bought this for their child that borrowed it to mine. Evan with proper guidance, overall reality can get lost between right and wrong. Being tired is not a good excuse for not raising good caring children who grow up to be decent adults.

How does this all tie into heating, cooling, plumbing, electrical, drain cleaning or water treatment? Because the same sound choices I made back then with our boys, we are making at Central. I am committed of continuing at being “The Best In Flathead” for many, many more years to come and providing you with the right solution with one call, for all of our Services. We want to take care of your home for you, with our Team of HAPPY, good, honest, trained people.

Sesame Street was one of the shows that showed up on the list of seventies favorites, it has been “On Air” since 1969…did not make the list for the 2010’sSaturday Night Live also made the seventies favorite list, again no show on today’s list…been airing since 1975One “oldie” that did show up on the 2010’s FAV list, is the Simpsons, been running since 1989, who would have thought… ’.